The Perfect Blow: A Diamond Story, and Our Injuries
Three weeks ago, on the last day of a splendid spring break, I ruptured my Achilles. With a backward lunge, walking—not to mention my daily runs—came to an abrupt end.
Everything’s harder, it all takes longer, on one leg. God gave us two legs for a reason.
And God also knew what he was about when my tendon popped.
He Will Perfect What Concerns Me
I’ve long loved Psalm 138:8,
“The Lord will perfect that which concerns me;
Your mercy, O Lord, endures forever;
Do not forsake the works of Your hands.”
I believed that already, and so I wrote a book. But then I read a devotion this week that choked me up in the best way. I want to share that with you today.
But before I do, I want you to know that I know: my little leg injury is tiny compared to the blows some of you face.
Crutching it for a month or two and “boot scooting” on stairs, depending on kind souls to hold doors and neighbors to haul packages, and re-learning to sleep in a clunky CAM boot are inconveniences. Compared with irreparable loss and unrelenting pain, my injury is exceedingly light.
But it is a blow.
The Perfect Blow
And it is a thing by with my Master will bring me to more “perfect shapeliness, radiance, and jewelled splendor.”
By faith, I believe this. The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me. He will accomplish that which concerns me. And if “it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering” (Hebrews 2:10), it is fitting that he should perfect me through the same process.
He will do the same for every one of his blood-bought children.
He will.
Now here’s that diamond story.
A Gem of Priceless Value
Several years ago there was found in an African mine the most magnificent diamond in the world’s history. It was presented to the King of England to blaze in his crown of state. The King sent it to Amsterdam to be cut. It was put into the hands of an expert lapidary. And what do you suppose he did with it?
He took the gem of priceless value, and cut a notch in it. Then he struck it a hard blow with his instrument, and lo! the superb jewel lay in his hand cleft in twain. What recklessness! What wastefulness! What criminal carelessness!
Not so. For days and weeks that blow had been studied and planned. Drawings and models had been made of the gem. Its quality, its defects, its lines of cleavage had all been studied with minutest care. The man to whom it was committed was one of the most skillful lapidaries in the world.
Do you say that blow was a mistake? Nay. It was the climax of the lapidary’s skill. When he struck that blow, he did the one thing which would bring that gem to its most perfect shapeliness, radiance, and jewelled splendor. That blow which seemed to ruin the superb precious stone was, in fact, its perfect redemption. For, from those two halves were wrought the two magnificent gems which the skilled eye of the lapidary saw hidden in the rough, uncut stone as it came from the mine.
So, sometimes, God lets a stinging blow fall upon your life. The blood spurts. The nerves wince. The soul cries out in agony. The blow seems to you an apalling mistake. But it is not, for you are the most priceless jewel in the world to God. And He is the most skilled lapidary in the universe.
Some day you are to blaze in the diadem of the King. As you lie in His hand now He knows just how to deal with you. Not a blow will be permitted to fall upon your shrinking soul but that the love of God permits it, and works out from its depths, blessing and spiritual enrichment unseen, and unthought of by you.
—J. H. McConkey (Streams in the Desert, 4/17)
“God loves you and he knows what he is doing.“
I believe both of those statements are true. They were true for Mary and Martha when Jesus waited two days and Lazarus died. They were true for Fanny Crosby when she lost her sight and for Joni as she dove.
I choose to believe that my God knows just how to deal with me. He knows my defects better than any other. He knows best how to reveal more of Christ in me.
I trust that the heavy blow of an Achilles rupture was not intended to destroy but to perfectly redeem.
Not a single blow can hit,
Until the God of love sees fit.
